


This Ain't A Fairy Tale

by Whreflections



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: Abuse, Dark, Dubious Consent, F/M, M/M, Post canon, Prostitute Glitch, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:40:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where the happy ending fell apart, Glitch ended up lost and alone in the Realm of the Unwanted. When you're down to half a brain, it makes it really hard to hold onto what's real, and no matter how real it feels like Cain was, how much he thinks he remembers him, he can't be sure. But if he never had Cain, then he's not sure he ever had anything at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Ain't A Fairy Tale

**Author's Note:**

> Plot related note…this is set in a world where after the apparent happy ending we think we see, everything went south. Zero’s men found him and let him out, and with the aid of the substantial Longcoat force leftover, they seized power. The royal family was thrown in the dungeons, Raw was killed, and though Cain managed to get Glitch out he was taken back himself and…
> 
> That’s enough background. Let’s just start with that, lol So, here’s Glitch, in the Realm of the Unwanted…

Outside in the hall, there’s a clock. He tries to use the tick to pull his fragmented mind into focus, a steady constant, but it doesn’t always work. Sometimes it fades, sometimes he loses it, sometimes it drowns his own thoughts out and others it just divides them. Divide and conquer? Wasn’t there something about time being the master of all men, time…  
  
But he forgets. He forgets, and time is one of the things that slips from him the most. He doesn’t know his age, doesn’t know how long it’s been since yesterday or what the distance is like between where he is and two annuals from now. He knows that he was something, once, knows that he was part of something great even after that, but…  
  
He knows that Zero is in control now, on the surface. He knows it, just like he knows that he was there when it all went down, the coup and the killing and the blood in the halls but he doesn’t remember much between. That is somewhere in the past and he is here, and remembering even that much sometimes makes his head hurt.   
  
The street is loud. Right now, that’s what he knows. It’s loud, and he’s hungry, but he knows he won’t get anything until his last customer has come and gone. By the last chime of the clock he thinks it’s 4 in the morning, or is it 4 in the afternoon? It’s hard to tell down here, nothing but neon and flashes and so much that’s artificial. It must be winter, up above, because on top of his head the zipper is cold. His head always aches when it’s cold. Heat rises, he remembers. But something else, something about…  
  
The bell jangles loudly from the room behind him and he comes in off the balcony, expectant. That means work, means someone’s come and asked for him or just been referred to him and he wonders if…  
  
But no, it isn’t. It’s an old man, grey in a scratchy beard under hard black eyes.   
  
“Well, hello. I’m-“  
  
“Don’t need to know your name.”   
  
Syphin has him in clothes that he says show him off the best, sometimes. When the rich ones are coming. More often than not, though, he wears what he will, and no one cares, no one notices. This one pushes him against the wall, palm against his spine as he yanks down Glitch’s pants. His ear presses against the wall, peeling paint over wood.   
  
Behind him, he hears the man spit into his palm and he squirms, realizes he’s got better, he should probably tell him that they don’t have to do it that way, he can…  
  
But he remembers before he speaks, like he sometimes does. Most of them don’t care.   
  
There’s the feel of big hands clenching tight around the cheeks of his ass, then one hard thrust. He winces, closes his eyes. This one’s going to be a chore. If he tilts his head just right, maybe he can count it down with the clock.   
  
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’   
  
If he lives in chaos, he dreams in a damn technicolor funhouse. He’s on the run and in the woods and then he’s in the throne room and he’s having his brain cut out and he’s getting fucked on dirty sheets and he’s panhandling on a corner and he’s in a cage and there are little men and…  
  
And then he’s with Cain. His dreams may stop elsewhere, sometimes he might even dream one dream for a whole entire sleep, but unless it’s about Cain he’ll still feel like he’s spinning and spinning and spinning. Cain makes it all stop, brings with him the quiet and the  _warmth_  in his hands.   
  
They’re in the woods, in camp and he wakes up, unsure for that first minute of almost everything. But then-  
  
“Good morning, sweetheart.”   
  
Cain’s by the fire, but his voice carries. He’s got Cain’s coat over him, he can feel it, but he remembers thinking that it’s the voice instead that he’s wrapped up in.   
  
He wakes up to a scream in the alley. He gasps, flips out of bed. Her screams turn to laughter, and the floor is cold. He thinks for a second that that’s probably why he doesn’t sleep there, and then he feels stupid, as worthless and foolish as he always does when he catches a glimpse of the inanity of his own thoughts.   
  
When he falls asleep again, he can’t help but feel the blankets are cold. Everything is cold, but in his dream, under the coat and that voice, he was nothing but warm.   
  
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’   
  
Sometimes, he  _really_  realizes that he has no idea how long he’s been there. He has one of those moments the next day(or is it?), as Syphin brings him a meal and tells him he’s going to need his strength. There’s a laugh in his voice but Glitch’s stomach turns over quick, because he thinks he knows what he means, and  _that’s_  when he realizes it.   
  
This feeling, it’s one he knows well, the anticipation that comes before the Tin Man. It’s as familiar to him as anything can be, as reliable a reaction as the metal teeth of his zipper under his fingers. It’s familiar, and he suddenly wonders how long it’s been. How long does it take, for something to become so well known to someone like him? Has it been months? Annuals? Has it just been days after all?   
  
Trying to hone in on the answer shorts out his thoughts, leaves him with a loop of _daysdaysdayshowmanydaysshorterdaysdarkerdaysdaysdays_ -  
  
He shakes his head, and for a second he thinks of almost nothing. It helps, usually. But he can’t think of nothing, can’t focus enough to think of white walls or white flowers or white light or the way white is…he used to know something about it, about how it wasn’t a color, about spectrums of light.   
  
The Tin Man is coming, he remembers. The first time with him, even he remembers that.   
  
He came in, took off his coat and laid it down across the desk. His boots were polished. He’d pulled Glitch close without preamble, kissed him rough but so deep that Glitch remembered the way his cock had already started to rise. They didn’t always kiss him. He  _felt_  like a Tin Man, all muscle underneath his shirt, scars visible on his chest once it was open. The green eyes, those were wrong, but he shut his own as the Tin Man held him down to the bed with strong arms.   
  
Cain had had strong arms. He could remember the way they’d held him, the shock of the realization sudden enough to make him gasp. There were hands  _there_  digging into his ribs, bruising, but then they weren’t, were firm but careful, one on his hip and the other underneath him and splayed against his back, holding him close to a chest that heaved with his own.  
  
Cain was filling him, taking him with a certainty that made Glitch shudder and shake in his grasp. His own cock was rubbing between them, stealing a little bit of friction but the feel of Cain in him was almost overriding, so intense and real and so  _much_  that he was sure he could come off that alone, was about to, was going to, could feel Cain’s breath against his neck, hear his voice against his ear, and he said, Cain said  _hesaidhesaidhesaid_ -  
  
He couldn’t hold it, couldn’t hold the thought or the sense memory or  _anything_  and he came, felt it hit sticky against his own chest.   
  
“ _Cain_.” The moan was instinct; he couldn’t help it. It came from his soul, from everything that he remembered, everything that crashed back in on him when Cain centered him. His throat felt raw with it, and he clutched the man in his arms tighter, nails digging into his back.  _CainCainCain_  
  
The fist that connected with his jaw took him by so much surprise that he bit his tongue, his mouth fast filling with the taste of blood. The Tin Man was staring down at him, steady.  _Green_  eyes.   
  
“Either you say my name,  _mine_ , or you tell me how good I’m fucking you, or you keep your godsdamned mouth shut.” He backhanded him, and Glitch licked his lips, wondered absently how red his tongue looked. “Do you understand me, headcase?  _Are you listening?_ ”   
  
“Yes. Yes, I’m listening.”   
  
I love you, that’s what Cain said. Pushed it out through his teeth while he was buried inside him, like something in Glitch had drawn it almost painfully forth. It had sounded heavy when he said it, and he’d almost convulsed with it, Cain clutching him so tight once the words were out that there could be nothing else, even  _his_  mind couldn’t wander. There was Cain, just Cain and the way he came with his lips pressed to Glitch’s jaw, breathing hard and fast against his skin. I love you, he’d said I love you, and Glitch had said he wouldn’t forget. Blue eyes. He’d looked into them as he’d said it, and there’d been so much in them, triumphant and tired and…and…  
  
“You damn well better be listening. You come for  _me_.” Fingers closed around his throat, and he felt the Tin Man come inside him with a grunt. When he pulled out he forced Glitch’s legs painfully apart, watched. Glitch could feel it, come leaking out of his ass, so he knew what he was watching, but the savage gleam in the Tin Man’s eyes still made him squirm.   
  
That had been the first time. After that, he lost count.   
  
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’   
  
Some days, he knew he had to get out of there. It would hit him like a powerful wave, fear for DG and Cain and….Raw was gone, he remembered. There was so much blood and he’d stayed down and DG had screamed for him but he couldn’t get up and Cain had grabbed Glitch’s arm and dragged him out the door. But they were  _somewhere_ , Cain and DG, and he had to find them, had to get out of this place and go find them…  
  
There, his thoughts always trailed off. For all he knew, that was annuals ago. Even if it wasn’t, it wasn’t as if he knew where to go. He’d been able to find them before, though he could never place the specifics, but something about those times had to have been different. Maybe they’d been close by or maybe he’d known a little more about where he was going or maybe they’d actually always just found him but he couldn’t be sure and he always glitched out when he tried too hard to see. Sometimes he thinks the memories are there, buried, and sometimes he thinks they’re just gone. Half a brain, less storage capacity, wouldn’t that be true? It seems true.   
  
In the end, he never goes anywhere. Either he remembers all this or he forgets he was leaving or some combination of the two, and he stays where he knows he has a place. It’s better here than on the streets,  _that_  much he’s sure of. Syphin had found him behind a dumpster, weak and lost and pitiful. He could fight the thugs off easily enough, but that didn’t get him food and it didn’t get him shelter.   
  
He’d knelt down in front of him, eyes dragged down his body from zipper to hips like a scanner.   
  
“ _Well_. Aren’t you pretty.”   
  
Glitch was pretty sure he’d offered him work then, but the rest was fuzzy, always fuzzy.   
  
The urge to run went away, maybe diffusing out through his skin. Diffusion. He’d known a lot about it once, used the principles to...to…  
  
In the bathroom, he washed his hands with water that smelled like chemicals, splashed it across his face. He had to keep up his strength, Syphin had said. Tonight, the Tin Man was coming. From how pleased Syphin always was when it happened, he had to pay well. He  _had_  to, because sometimes after he’d been there Glitch couldn’t work for a day, once for nearly a week.   
  
There were scars on the inside of his arms, marks of a straight razor and when he thought about it he couldn’t help but look at them in wonderment. Some of it was him, and some of it he just wasn’t sure.   
  
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’   
  
“On your knees, pretty boy.”   
  
“Oh, alright, I had…well, I guess I thought since it’s been awhile that-“  
  
Strong fingers closed around his wrist, yanked him off the bed. “Am I  _ever_  gonna teach you to  _shut up_?”   
  
“No. I don’t know. Maybe.” Glitch laughed, a little manic. Still it was the easiest he’d laughed in ages, probably since the last time he was here which had seemed like a long time ago that morning but now he was wondering, because he’d been waiting for him naked on the bed and usually if it had been awhile, he fucked him first but-  
  
The Tin Man flicked his own belt open, twisted his hands painfully in Glitch’s hair as he pulled him toward his stirring cock. “ _Here_. Put that damn mouth of yours to some use.”   
  
That much he could do. He took him in his mouth easily, sucked enough to get him wet and truly hard before he pulled back to tease just enough nuzzling against the front of his pants. It got him a harsh grip on the back of his neck, enough that he gasped at the pain and the pressure but it was alright, alright. His thigh smelled like woodsmoke and leather.   
  
Cain had smelled like woodsmoke and leather, the scent clinging to the collar of his coat as Glitch had buried his face in it, his focus torn between the feel of Cain’s tongue against his neck and the scent, the scent.   
  
He’d gasped, asked Cain what they were doing. Cain said he didn’t know, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t wasting time. That had been so important to him, Glitch remembered, and he hadn’t said it all in so many words but the rest was there in his eyes , in his hands, in the way he’d watched over them all as they slept, the way he’d started to keep his hand on Glitch’s chest when he did. He’d lost Adora, lost annuals, lost  _life_  and if the two of them did this, something, anything, then it would be every second, embedded in life and breath and  _everything_  because if he was going to keep from drowning in his loss then time with what he could manage to have right there in his hands was something he could never afford to lose again.   
  
He loved the scent. The Tin Man filled his mouth, pressed against his throat, held his jaw open so long it ached. The man above him groaned and whispered, spoke of how much he looked just like the perfect whore with that stretch to his jaw, how he had that natural rhythm to the movement of his tongue, how he loved to come down his throat but that he wondered what would happen if undid that zipper, spilled himself into something far more intimate, what  _would_  happen then? Would it hurt, he wondered? Would it make his brain short and skip at first? Would it seep down into him, drawn up by his pathetic half brain like minerals from the soil and maybe  _then_  he’d be sure it was him Glitch saw when he was fucking him.   
  
Glitch doesn’t know the answer to any of his questions, couldn’t answer even if he did. When it’s finished he swallows, and the Tin Man digs his nails into the bruises on the back of Glitch’s neck before he pets him, affectionate. The motion is familiar. Something tells him Cain used to touch him like that, too, but it’s fleeting, and he’s not all the way sure. Does it matter? It  _feels_  true.   
  
Glitch stops trying to think and just feels, shivers, follows the way his body turns toward the Tin Man’s touch.   
  
“Good. You’re so good.” Sometimes, when he’s just come, there’s something in his voice that almost sounds soft.   
  
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’   
  
Glitch isn’t stupid. Crazy and disconnected, maybe, but he still isn’t stupid, and most of the time he knows it. It’s just that now, here, there’s no one to listen to him talk when he  _is_  making sense. He thinks it’s affecting him, actually, because back when he had people to talk to it seemed like his thoughts were a little more ordered, but now every time he thinks he’s got something important there’s no one to tell. It isn’t as if he can really talk to  _them_ , though he tries.   
  
“You were made for this, weren’t you Glitch? Best fuck I’ve ever had.” The Tin Man trails a hand down his chest, fingers moving daintily across a pattern of purple.   
  
Glitch hasn’t caught his breath yet, but he speaks up anyway. “I was important, once. Twice, really. Advisor to the queen. And DG, she needed me, she…she said…” She said he was the smartest man she’d ever known. Sometimes, he can still feel the way she’d held him, that rock solid feeling that he had family.   
  
The Tin Man’s laugh cuts through the memory, low and cruel. “You? Please. That was four annuals ago, and even if I heard she had some headcase tailing her, it sure as hell wouldn’t have been you. You know what you’re good for, Glitch?”   
  
In his mind, he’s still off somewhere else. “I used to be good at lots of things. Inventor. I made machines, and new lights, and I created this fabric that-“  
  
“All you  _are_ , Glitch, is crazy. And that’s all you’re ever gonna be.” The cheap bed creaks as he rolls over, pulls his jacket up from the floor so he can rummage around in the pockets. He’s either looking for the blade or one of his toys, and Glitch squirms until he sees it’s just a long, glass shaft, stills when a warning hand presses painfully against his ribs. “But the thing is…you’re such a good whore, you don’t need to be anything else.” The smile he gives him is somewhere between wicked and sympathetic, and it’s so hard to place that he can’t, his synapse shorting just enough to confuse him.   
  
“Spread your legs.” It’s that voice of command he can’t disobey without punishment, and even though he’s worn out already he does it, whimpering as he feels smooth, unnaturally hot glass slide into his already sore ass. It’s just on the edge of being too much, of burning, and his body twists and undulates against the sensation, unsure if it wants more or less. He doesn’t get the choice, though. He never does, just a slap to his cheek and a deeper octave to a voice that already makes him quiver.   
  
“Keep still. The more you move, the more I turn up the heat. You don’t come until I say.”   
  
He doesn’t nod, hardly dares to breathe. He may never stop talking, but on some things he’s learned to play by the rules. “That’s…that’s fascinating is it a…” Chemical…something. He can’t remember. Something about reactions and heat that he’s forced to stop thinking as the feel of teeth biting down startlingly gentle on his lip clears it away.   
  
“Pay attention, Glitch. And if you’re good, maybe this’ll be it for tonight. And maybe I’ll stay.”   
  
He always says it, and he hardly ever does, but every now and then he lets Glitch curl up against his chest, covered by that coat. It’s what he lives for, what he waits for, because Cain used to hold him like that, he knows, he  _remembers_.   
  
At least, that’s what he thinks. Time and words swirl around in his head, a mass that won’t congeal into true form and he wonders sometimes if maybe the man between his legs now isn’t right after all, if maybe it’s not the way he doesn’t belong here that’s the fantasy, but everything  _else_. Maybe he was born here, maybe he’ll die here, and maybe this man with his voice and his scent and pleasure and pain is all that Cain ever was.   
  
Glitch turns his head into the pillow, bites his lip to fight the tears he can feel filling up his eyes behind his lids. If he lets his heart break now, he’ll lose himself, lose this moment, and he’ll pay for it. For now, it’s better to forget. He can break later, if he still remembers all of this once he’s alone. Maybe he will and maybe he won’t, but either way he knows it’s going to hurt and there’s a good chance he won’t know why.   
  
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’   
  
There’s a man that Syphin says comes every Sunday. He’s got red hair, and he likes Glitch on his knees.   
  
Another regular wants to be fucked, likes to listen to Glitch talk only he never hears a word he says. Mostly, he gets off on hearing him glitch, repetitive, like a broken record.   
  
There’s a group that comes in together, three men and they all talk about his mouth and his ass and how someday they’re going to get two of them up inside him at once but they never do. He tells them they’re scared of how they feel about each other once, and regrets it when one of them almost hits him. He’s so surprised the man doesn’t hit him, and he spends long enough wondering about that that they assume it’s just his crazy mind. Crazy Glitch. The leader, he shuts him when he shoves Glitch’s face against his friend’s ass. They don’t pay Syphin to listen to him give them advice, he says.   
  
There’s the woman that just wants his mouth on her, wants to run her hands over the top of his head, says she’s got a thing for the way it feels under her fingertips.   
  
Another woman only comes once, but he remembers her, because she tells him that her husband is a headcase, somewhere. She pushes him down on the bed carefully, and though she tells him she’s going to make love to him and her hands are gentle and warm, to Glitch it doesn’t feel anything like making love. That he still thinks he remembers, but he shuts his eyes, lets her think she’s helping him. Buried inside her he remembers Cain’s heat, remembers the way he’d lost that careful control and cried out when he’d hit him just right for the first time. He’d never felt that, he’d said, never let anyone…he’d been face down on the mattress, and Glitch had wanted to see his face. When he comes inside her, he’s trying to imagine what it would’ve looked like, and his brain snags on the ‘would’ve’.  _Could’ve_. Possibility. Like something imaginary.  _Imaginaryimaginaryimagin_ \--  
  
He thanks her, and hopes that the next night, the Tin Man will come.   
  
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’   
  
“Why do you make me hurt you, hm? Why do you do it, Glitch?” He doesn’t give him time to answer, keeps talking with his words sliding right into Glitch’s ear on a hot stream of air. “But I guess we both know that even if you didn’t, I’d have to do it anyway, because you’re so damn  _pretty_  when you’re just that little bit more broken, aren’t you, Glitch?  _Aren’t you_?”   
  
He doesn’t know, wouldn’t know anything about it. He knows that he sees himself in the mirror sometimes after their nights, and it’s the only time he really and truly  _hates_. Not his Tin Man, just himself, because if there’s something wrong here, it’s  _his_  fault, because when it’s happening, he loves it. He loves it, craves it, because what else can he get? Anything from this man is better than a kind word from anyone else, because he’s the only thing that seems just a little bit real.   
  
It’s a combination, a code he can’t get just right. Cain grounded him. He was clearer when he was with him, more sure, and now it’s like trying to put together a puzzle in the dark. Sequence DNA with a fragmented strand. He can never remember this man’s name, never, no matter how many times he hears it, but he knows he’s a Tin Man, and that’s one thing he can cling to until it burns the flesh off his fingers. He’s a Tin Man, and that should mean safety. That should make things right, someday, if only he can pull himself together enough to solve the rest. Because what if, what  _if_  this is all there ever was? If the rest is just illusion? The brain dreams, he knows this, why couldn’t his have worked up an illusion to explain the parts of his memory it was missing? Will this someday seem like a wild story too, when his mind runs out of room to hold it? He’s not stupid, and that’s the problem, because he’s still smart enough to know that that  _could_  be true. Waking dreams, and nothing more.   
  
He hasn’t answered, has gotten too distracted to answer, and he feels the sharp bite of teeth against his shoulder. Blood wells, and he’s too tired to even sigh.   
  
“You are, you know you are. Such a beautiful little dirty whore.”   
  
Dirty. He feels it. He can’t remember the last time he felt clean; if he ever did.   
  
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’   
  
It’s been hours or minutes since he left, sometime after the bite but before Glitch opened his eyes. Sometimes he does that, leaves without a proper goodbye or even a kiss, and Glitch gets that same pit in his stomach that tells him maybe he did something wrong, maybe if he’d been better his Tin Man would’ve stayed.   
  
There’s a commotion going on downstairs but he pays it no mind, just keeps laying there and hoping his brain will stop swirling around in his empty head. There are good days and bad days, and though he’s felt pretty smart today  _nothing_  has stopped whirling. It’s disorienting, and he’d love to have some quiet, but it doesn’t matter. Here, men fight all the time, over price, over a bad fuck, over-  
  
The door opens, and he doesn’t bother to crack his eyes again or even drag a blanket over his body. Syphin’s seen him every way, well fucked and horribly fucked and wounded and tired and used, and right now he can’t bring himself to care. He’s probably checking anyway, checking the damage, seeing how soon he’ll be ready to go and Glitch isn’t ready for it, because he feels too damn tired and spun around and heavy. There’s a pain he can’t shake and struggles to name, something that slips when he tries to grab it, though he knows he thinks it sometimes without any side effects other than wracking sobs that leave his eyes red. He forgets the specifics, but the pain he remembers.   
  
The air stirs around him, warmth pressing against his side, and he forces his eyes open when he feels the brush of a sleeve against his chest. He’s never come back so soon like this, never…  
  
“… _Cain_?” Gods, but it  _has_  to be. He’s looking up into blue eyes, and though they look pained enough that it stabs him to even see, they’re  _right_. That rough sleeve is oh so carefully being dragged over his shoulder, trying futilely to clean already scabbing blood from the bite wound. He shakes his head, synapses shorting and refiring. No, it can’t be. There’s only the Tin Man and illusion, and it can’t be.  _It can’t be, it can’t be, made it up, it can’t be, he_ -  
  
He’s not even speaking, but Cain must  _feel_  him losing it because he scoops him up in his arms as gently as he can, something catching in his voice as he tucks Glitch’s worn out body in close.   
  
“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m right here.” 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] This Ain't A Fairy Tale](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3787042) by [Dr_Fumbles_McStupid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Fumbles_McStupid/pseuds/Dr_Fumbles_McStupid)




End file.
